MUSICAL MAKEOVER

Many people have stopped to admire the decrepit old fishing boat tied in her berth in the town basin. The elegant sheer, sweeping back from a raised foc’sle, ample beam carried well forward and aft, the small aft wheelhouse and, most of all, her plump, buoyant cruiser stern are the stuff of dreams. The name, Melodeon, painted on the bulwarks added to the vessel’s mellifluous symmetry.

But the people who know enough about boats to appreciate these things, also know that it takes a special person – someone with the knowhow, time, space, energy, money, commitment and equipment – to tackle a restoration on that scale.

Someone like Dick Fisher.

“I could see that unless we took her in hand, would have ended up being on a bonfire,” says